


Bit of a Flirt

by Ray_Writes



Series: Tumblr Prompts [51]
Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: F/M, Flirting, Pre-Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-15
Updated: 2019-03-15
Packaged: 2019-11-18 13:47:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 923
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18121769
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ray_Writes/pseuds/Ray_Writes
Summary: Another sentence prompt I was given recently over on tumblr. This one is sort of early days in the travels. I imagine it taking place sometime between Planet of the Ood and the Sontaran two-parter. Hopefully you enjoy!





	Bit of a Flirt

**Author's Note:**

  * For [smackalicious](https://archiveofourown.org/users/smackalicious/gifts).



> Another sentence prompt I was given recently over on tumblr. This one is sort of early days in the travels. I imagine it taking place sometime between Planet of the Ood and the Sontaran two-parter. Hopefully you enjoy!

The Doctor prided himself on many things, but his wit and his words perhaps most of all. He was always quick with a quip or ready to launch into an incredibly long ramble squeezed into the space of about half a minute thanks to the sheer speed at which he talked. 

It amused him greatly when he could bamboozle complete strangers through speech alone. Of course, there were those who could keep up. Those were often his friends.

And none could keep up half as well as Donna Noble.

Donna had quite the gob on her, always yammering on about this or that or firing twenty questions at him straight in a row before he could answer one through five. She had a way of turning anything he said around on him, which both wounded and delighted him at once. As often as she built on his own setup or sentences, she just as often took things in her own direction. Challenged him as much as she chimed in. It was an entirely new yet wonderful experience. He couldn’t get enough.

There was little he enjoyed more these days than a verbal spar with his best mate. So the Doctor engaged in them often. On one such evening, they began around the console.

“How do you feel about greenhouses?”

She didn’t even look up from her study of the controls. “The gas or the place?”

“Place, of course.”

“Bit sweaty.”

He grinned. Good old Donna. “Gardens then, that’d suit you better?”

“Yeah, why?” She walked around the console closer to him, a clear sign that her interest had in fact been raised. “You have something in mind, Spaceman?”

“Oh, yes. Any number of places to choose from. But one, in particular, I think you’re gonna like.” He grinned down at her, happy to have reached his point in the end. There was also the excitement that came from imagining the look on her face when they reached Heraena Botanical Garden. It was a rare treat to see Donna truly impressed.

But Donna’s own slight smile slipped as she watched him, and the next thing she said threw an impossibly large spanner in the gears. “Hold on — are you flirting with me?”

The Doctor’s mouth fell open. “What?”

“You heard me.” Donna’s arms crossed. “I mean, here you are all eyebrows and smug smirks and  _ leaning. _ What am I supposed to think?”

“Leaning?” The Doctor straightened up and cleared his throat, working to get his voice back to a more normal register. “What’s wrong with leaning?”

“You heard of body language, Time Boy? And then you’re taking me somewhere you ‘think I might like’? That’s a classic line. Could have other meanings, as they say.”

“You’re the one that asked to see the universe! I could take you to places I think you’d hate if that’s what you want—”

“You already take me places I hate.”

“—but far be it from me to try and ensure my companion has a nice time.” The Doctor rounded the other side of the console. “Even if she’s going to criticize the way I talk and look and say things, apparently.”

Donna was refusing to feel guilty, it appeared, for instead she asked, “Can we talk about companion, actually? Cause that’s a loaded word.”

“Loaded?”

“I’m just saying,” she remarked, both hands raised in the air, “that the way you conduct yourself sometimes, it’s no wonder Martha got ideas.”

He cringed. “I said that was my fault.”

“Right, well now I’m seeing why. You are a flirt, Doctor, plain and simple.”

“What, and you’re not?” He glanced her way before typing in the coordinates for Heraena. “I’ve seen you.”

“Yeah, when I’m trying! You just flirt with anyone, not even realizing you’re flirting — oh, I bet you’ve been breaking hearts across the universe,” Donna declared.

“I have not,” he denied.

“Oh, don’t pout. Look, some people are just flirts, they can’t help it. I’ve got this mate back home, Elise—”

“Well, I wasn’t flirting. And if I was, I certainly didn’t intend to flirt with you. We’re mates. Friends.”

“ _ Companions _ ,” Donna agreed, exaggerating the syllables. He rolled his eyes. “That’s all fine, then. But you’ll want to watch yourself. Not everyone’s as wise to it as I am. Might give off the wrong impression next time.”

His nose scrunched up. “Next time?”

“Yeah, you know. The next one you invite,” Donna replied, jerking a thumb behind her as if there was someone waiting in a queue.

“Well, I won’t be. I’ve invited you, and that’s that.” He refused to think that far down the road to when Donna might leave him — or how. It always spoiled things when he let his mind go there. “So it’s good we’ve established I’m not flirting. Don’t need to have this conversation again.”

He leaned over the console to spin one of the dials.

“Right. Just had to check.”

She had, had she? And what might of happened had he answered the other way?

“So, gardens then?”

“Yep.” They landed and he jogged down to the doors, waiting for Donna to join him. “I suppose it’d be out of bounds to offer an arm, then?”

“Well, if you can’t help yourself.” Donna gave a delicate sniff and placed her arm in his. “Do your worst, Spaceman, I’m impervious.”

“If you say so, Madame.”

Flirting. Honestly. What he and Donna had wasn’t some casual, flirty thing. It meant far more to him than that — though, perhaps, that was a sentiment best left unsaid.


End file.
